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Introduction

One of the greatest blessings of my life over the past two decades has been the opportunity to listen to tens of thousands of Catholics around the world describe how God is using them in the lives of others. The one-on-one listening sessions that we call gifts interviews are just about the most fun you can have legally. We hear these words over and over: “I’ve never told anyone this story before but….”

For my collaborators and me, the interviews have provided a stunning window into the realities of God’s grace at work in our world that regular Catholics in the pews hardly ever get the chance to put into words. The stories we’ve heard run the gamut from the funny to the unexpected to the hopeful, and occasionally to the gloriously extraordinary. (I once had the chance to listen to someone describe an experience of bilocation!)

Of course, the experience of the vast majority of those we have helped to discern charisms is more mainstream but just as moving. You don’t have to appear exceptional to the world to be used in remarkable ways by God. As St. Teresa of Kolkata observed: “[Jesus] will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness. Only then, his hand will be free with you.”¹

This book was written for the same audience for which I wrote Forming Intentional Disciples — the “Core,” the Catholic leaders, ordained and lay, at all levels of the Church’s life whose vision and decisions will determine our future. But this is not the Called & Gifted workshop in book form.

That’s because the discernment and exercise of the charisms is just one part of the larger and more fundamental issue of fruitfulness: the manifestation of God’s power, purposes, and provision in history through the intentional cooperation of disciples with grace. The world and the whole human race is waiting for the fruit that you and I have been anointed by the Holy Spirit to bear, and the charisms are just one important kind of fruit.

We have learned an enormous amount over the past twenty-three years about how to help Catholic adults of all ages and backgrounds discern and answer the call of God that comes with a charism. What I didn’t understand was how little of that accumulated savvy you can cram into a book of manageable size. I worked hard to cover the most basic principles, but I need to make it clear that reading this book is neither the equivalent of going through an actual discernment process nor does it include the Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory. (If you would like to go through a discernment process, please visit the Catherine of Siena Institute website at www.siena.org and give us the chance to assist you.)

I owe an enormous debt to our Institute staff and our indefatigable traveling and regional teachers and trainers, who make it possible for me to take time off the road, and to the 140,000 Catholics who have shared their experiences of God with us over the past twenty years. It has been a tremendous privilege to collaborate with the thousands of Catholic leaders: bishops, pastors, diocesan and parish staff, and so many others who have worked with us to foster the missionary discipleship and discernment of Catholics over the years. In the writing of this book, I am especially beholden to the apostolic passion and hard-won wisdom of Katherine Coolidge, Bobby Vidal, Father Michael Sweeney, O.P., Mark and Janet Shea, Deacon Keith Strohm, Dave VanVickle, Sherry Curp, Gary Weddell, Cindy Cavnar, Craig Pohl, Jennifer Brown, Bishop Earl Boyea, Father Tom Firestone, Father James Mangan, and all the priests and leaders of the Flint Catholic Community.

I can’t end without a shout-out to the 7,200 members of the Forming Intentional Disciples Facebook Forum. Being able to pick the brains and receive the prayers of some of the most astute and effective Catholic evangelizers from around the world at a moment’s notice has been incredibly fruitful and encouraging. It is the ultimate twenty-first-century Catholic evangelizer’s brain trust and support network. Our experience on the Forum has shown that we can use social media to duplicate some of the collaborative dynamics of the Generation of Saints who were the catalysts of the great Catholic revival in early seventeenth-century France.

Blessed be God in all his gifts!

¹ The first sentence of the quote is from Mother Teresa, “Jesus Christ: He wants to love with our hearts and serve with our hands” (online at http://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01031997_p-10_en.html, as of May 5, 2017); the second sentence is from Mother Teresa, No Greater Love (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002), p. 87.